Joseph Caldwell (1773-1835), the son of Rachel Harker and physician Joseph Caldwell, was
born in New Jersey and educated in New Jersey and Pennsylvania schools before entering
the College of New Jersey (Princeton). In 1791 he graduated as the salutatorian at age
eighteen. While studying for the ministry, Caldwell taught in a classical school in
Elizabethtown, NJ, then as a tutor at the College of New Jersey. In 1795 he was licensed
to preach by the Presbytery of New Brunswick, and the following year he moved to Chapel
Hill to become president of the University. He married Susan Rowan of Fayetteville, NC,
in 1804, but she and an infant daughter died in 1807. In 1809 Caldwell married Helen
Hogg Hooper, mother of professor of ancient languages William Hooper. Caldwell received
DD degrees from both the University of North Carolina and the College of New Jersey in
1816. He raised funds to complete South Building, purchased books and scientific
apparatus for the University, built an observatory, and promoted public education
throughout the state. He published A Compendious System of Elementary
Geometry (1822); the Letters of Carlton (1828), which
argue for internal improvements in North Carolina; and Letters on
Popular Education Addressed to the People of North Carolina (1832).

Sources claim that in about 1829 Caldwell contracted a "chronic disease," apparently
kidney stones. In 1833 he visited doctors in Philadelphia, who pronounced the disease
incurable and "advised against lithotomy" (Battle 1:353), surgery to remove the stones
from the bladder. Chronically ill and in considerable pain after 1833, Caldwell
delegated many daily duties to other faculty members, especially Elisha Mitchell.

Professor Walker Anderson, eulogizing Caldwell during the 1835 Commencement describes
the last three days of Caldwell's life: "By the exercise of prayers and other acts of
the holy religion he professed, he strengthened himself for the last conflict, and spoke
words of consolation and hope to his sorrowing friends. But death was yet to be indulged
with a brief triumph, and for three days his sufferings were protracted with such
intensity that his vigorous and well-balanced mind sank beneath the contest" (Battle
1:416). He was buried on the University campus (Dictionary of North Carolina Biography 1:303-04).